World

ByCompiled from wire service reports by Robert Kilborn and Kristen Broman-WorthingtonFebruary 10, 2003

Saying he hoped he's seen "a beginning" of better Iraqi cooperation with the UN weapons-inspection regime, Hans Blix left his weekend mission to Baghdad carrying a sheaf of additional documents on Saddam Hussein's nuclear, anthrax, and nerve-gas programs. Iraq, he said, also pledged a decision by Friday on whether to agree to overflights by U-2 surveillance planes.

A deepening split appeared in relations between the US and some European governments, with Secretary of State Powell dismissing a proposal for additional weapons inspectors in Iraq. The time for such a plan, he told "Fox News Sunday," is past. The French-German plan, which also reportedly calls for deployment of thousands of UN peacekeepers to facilitate the inspectors' work, is due to be presented to the Security Council Friday.

Under strong urgings by the host government to avoid politics, an estimated 2 million Muslims converged on Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the annual hajj. Thousands of police were guarding against "any disturbing events" because of the likelihood of war in neighboring Iraq, a government official said.

Fighting between rebel forces and government troops was reported to be resuming in Ivory Coast despite President Laurent Gbagbo's speech to the nation calling on both sides to allow the nation's controversial peace deal time to work. In Friday night's address, however, he suggested he'd reserve for himself some powers that the rebels say the accord grants them. The deal calls for a power-sharing government, which has triggered massive public protests.

At least 32 people died and 162 others were hurt when a car bomb exploded in a parking garage under a posh social club in Bogotá, Colombia. Suspicion fell immediately on the Marxist rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for the Friday night blast, the first of its magnitude in the capital in more than a decade.